happy, reprise

Yesterday, one of my regular customers (one who I have barely talked to that much) announced out of nowhere that he had a Christmas present in his car for me, and then walked away.

I got uncomfortable as all of the other girls gave me a weird stare, and then he suddenly appeared again and handed me a framed picture, and said, "From one Midwesterner to another. It's a little piece of home." And it was a black and white picture of a lonely barn out in the middle of nowhere, Illinois.
I started crying.
I didn't know what to do. I haven't been back since May, and I know I'm going back in January, but it is just the time of year, and the fact that in all of my fuzzy-headed foolishness and mayhem, it was a reminder of the solid rock I have to stand on in the Midwest, and the solid rock I have in Jesus, who sees my loneliness and wants to take care of me.
"I'm going to hang it up in my room," I told him, not knowing what else to do, and if I was supposed to hug him or what. But now the photograph is sitting on my desk and I can't stop staring at it when I come in and out of the room, and it's become its own person, living there, haunting me when I wake and when I brush my teeth and it says to me, "Have you made all the right decisions? Are you really supposed to stay in Salt Lake?" But what I mumble back to the photograph is that it doesn't know what it is talking about and to stop trying to break my heart.

And then we all went to a women's basketball game, and Wesley threw up real vomit on us, which was disgusting but we still got smothered burritos anyway, after we'd cleaned up and changed.

And this is my life. 
Getting thrown up on.
Working out with Emily and Philip and Krista, and Ken asking me if my parents are Calvinist.
Sleeping long naps in the afternoon and killing my plants slowly by forgetting to open up the blinds.


But after today, there will be a little more sunlight in each day, because God is kind enough to give us seasons so we don't think we're living the same days over and over again.